Dedicated to the advancement of the State of Indiana by re-affirming our state's constitutional principles that: all people are created equal; no religious test shall be imposed on our public officials and offices of trust; and no special privileges or immunities shall be granted to any class of citizens which are not granted on the same terms to all citizens.
Advance Indiana, LLC. Copyright 2005-16. All rights reserved.

Saturday, November 05, 2011

Jack Abramoff Unplugged

60 Minututes' Lesley Stahl has a segment in this Sunday night's edition featuring convicted Washington influence peddler Jack Abramoff. He has a new tell all book out, Capitol Punishment, that has a lot of Washington pols on edge. A point Abramoff is making today is that congressional ethics reforms implemented in the aftermath of his case have done little to change the culture of corruption in Washington. I met Abramoff back in the early 1980s when he was president of the national College Republicans and I was president of the local chapter at Eastern Illinois University. He was an extremely self-confident man who had a meteoric rise in national political circles before his downfall following his indictment in 2005 on charges of defrauding Native American tribes he represented before Congress and the Interior Department on gaming matters. He served a six-year sentence for a variety of charges that arose out of his illegal influence peddling in Washington. Because he cooperated with federal investigators, many others were convicted along with him, including two lobbyists, Kevin Ring and Neil Volz, who worked for him before joining Barnes & Thornburg's Washington, D.C. office.

I've often criticized the corrupting influence tickets to professional sporting events and expensive dining has on our elected officials. Most of the media in Indiana have turned a blind eye to how much our elected officials are rewarded with tickets to sporting events, including the Indianapolis Colts, Indiana Pacers and the Indianapolis 500, and how much they are wined and dined at Indianapolis' finest restaurants. The politicians always insist that a free meal or tickets to a football game don't affect their decisions, but as a former lobbyist I know that is not the case. The Abramoff corruption investigations uncovered the extent to which he used four sky boxes he had at major sports arenas and a high-end restaurant he co-owned in Washington to quite effectively wield corrupt influence over members of Congress and their staff.

Speaking from his personal experience, Abramoff is now outlining a number of ethics reforms he believes are needed to prevent our elected officials from being corrupted by lobbyists. He wants to bar lobbyists from making political contributions to the people they lobby, and he wants to bar companies that bid on government contracts from making contributions. He thinks all gifts to lawmakers by lobbyists, including meals and tickets to sporting events, should be banned. He even wants the revolving door closed completely by imposing a lifetime ban on former legislators and their staff members from lobbying Congress. Abramoff thinks these harsh rules are necessary to ensure that people choose public service to serve the public and not their personal bank accounts.

It was refreshing to see someone own up to their mistakes and seek to make amends for their past transgressions. A lot of people don't realize that as sleazy as Jack was when he was earning tens of millions of dollars he was giving a very large percentage of it away to charitable groups.

SUPPORT ADVANCE INDIANA

It takes many hours of time to publish content for Advance Indiana. If you enjoy reading the content of this blog, please help out by contributing. You can click on the "Make A Donation" button below to support Advance Indiana by using PayPal. Thanks to all of those readers who have made contributions in the past and continue to support this blog with your contributions. If you would rather support the blog using an alternative source of payment or would like to advertise on this blog, e-mail me at gwelsh@indy.rr.com for more information.

Blogflux

Subscribe To

Comment Policy

Advance Indiana allows you to post comments via this blog subject to the guidelines set forth herein. You understand that any comments you post are your own and are not those of Advance Indiana. You further understand that Advance Indiana is not responsible for the content of any external sites referenced in your comments. Unlawful, harassing, defamatory, abusive, threatening, harmful, obscene, profane, sexually oriented, racially offensive, or otherwise objectionable comments are not acceptable. If you think any content posted or otherwise included in Advance Indiana violates the guidelines set forth herein, then please alert Advance Indiana.
Advance Indiana reserves the right to pre-screen, edit, and remove any post as it deems appropriate. You specifically acknowledge that Advance Indiana has no obligation to display any post submitted or otherwise provided via Advance Indiana.